A new bill recently passed by the Indiana Senate would allow physician assistants (PAs) to practice in collaboration with physicians. The bill is authored by senators Jean Leising and Vaneta Becker and is known as Senate Bill 366 (SB 366); you can read the bill in full here. SB 366 has been sent to the House and awaits assignment to a committee for further consideration.
Currently, PAs in Indiana must practice under a written supervision agreement with a physician. Their scope of practice and prescriptive authority are defined in these written agreements. SB 366 would require that PAs collaborate with a physician as part of a health care team. These collaboration agreements would still need to be in writing but would no longer need to detail the scope of practice. Instead, they would:
These agreements would need to be updated annually and made available to the medical board when requested. If the PA is practicing in a licensed facility with a credentialing process, a written agreement is not needed, and the method of collaboration is set at the facility level. SB 366 would still require the physicians to review a number of patient encounters and charts. However, the requirements would be reduced from certain percentages to an appropriate amount to maintain quality of care.
If passed, SB 366 would greatly reduce the practice requirements and oversight on PAs. While this does not completely grant practice independence, this would be a major step forward and consistent with the national trend of reducing practice restrictions on PAs and other advanced practitioners.
We will be monitoring SB 366 as it advances though the Indiana legislative process this year.